1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to a lane tracking apparatus using camera direction control and, more particularly, to a lane tracking apparatus and method using camera direction control, which can control the direction angle of a camera in consideration of the curvature of a road calculated by recognizing a lane.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, as various functionalities of vehicles have been improved, a variety of technologies for enhancing the safety and convenience of a driver and a passenger have been presented. In particular, lane tracking technology for safely maintaining a vehicle within a lane has been commercialized.
In general, in lane tracking technology which allows a vehicle to use information about left and right lanes based on images of a camera, the camera is mounted on the front of the interior of the vehicle or on the rearview mirror of the vehicle, with the direction angle of the camera fixed. This may cause a dangerous situation in which the direction angle of the camera is fixed at a direction identical to the travel direction of the vehicle, and so it is difficult to accurately capture an image of a lane in certain environments, such as a region containing curved roads, thus making it impossible to recognize the lane and to provide a warning to prevent a driver from straying outside a lane.
In lane tracking technology, it is very important to accurately capture an image of a lane, but, as described above, a tracking apparatus that is generally used is problematic in that the direction angle of a camera is fixed, and so it is impossible to accurately capture an image of a lane on a curved road. Actually, it has been verified that a problem a rises in that a plurality of lane tracking apparatuses cannot provide lane tracking on curved roads.
Korean Patent Application Publication No. 2004-0034243 discloses a component for recognizing a lane using images, a component for calculating the slope of the lane using the images, a component for calculating the slope of the lane using the curvature of a road, a component for comparing the slopes with each other, and a component for calculating a final curvature based on the results of the comparison and recognizing the lane using the final curvature.
However, such conventional lane tracking merely discloses technology for recognizing a lane using images and the results of the calculation of a road curvature. Accordingly, the conventional lane tracking technology is problematic in that it is difficult to recognize a lane on a curved road due to the fixed direction angle of a camera, in that the relationship of the setting of the direction angle of the camera with variations in road curvature is not presented in detail, and in that a component for utilizing a Global Positioning System (GPS) during the calculation of the road curvature is neither disclosed nor suggested.
Therefore, in order to accurately recognize a lane on a curved road and exactly track the lane, new lane tracking technology is urgently required which can solve the problem of making it difficult to recognize a lane on a curved road when the direction angle of a camera is fixed, by suitably controlling the direction angle of the camera, can present in detail the relationship of the setting of the direction angle of the camera with variations in the road curvature, can calculate the road curvature using lane information and a GPS, and can prevent the vehicle from straying outside the lane and off the road and track the lane by correcting the steering angle of the vehicle so that the steering angle does not fall out of an angle range preset for the calculated road curvature.